Araxá

Perched in the rolling highlands of Minas Gerais, Araxá unfolds across 1,283 square kilometres of savannah-dotted plateaus and forested hills. Home to 111,691 residents as of 2022, it serves as the focal point of an eight-municipality region with 176,736 souls (2017 figures). Though just 3.45 square kilometres comprise its urban boundary, Araxá commands a landscape that stretches nearly 10,000 square kilometres, knitting together small towns and rural estates into a single tapestry.

Long before the first farmers arrived, Araxá’s story belonged to the people led by warrior Andaia-Aru. Splitting from the Cataguases tribe in the 16th century, the Araxás settled along the Rio Grande and in the shadow of the Serra da Canastra. They lived in balance with the land for roughly a century, until wave upon wave of European expeditions swept through, eager for timber and water. Tensions flared, treaties unraveled, and in the mid-1600s the Araxás were driven from the land they had shaped.

Under the banner of the Captaincy of Minas Gerais, colonial authorities dispatched the bandeira of Campo Inácio Correia de Pamplona to chart and claim territory. Over the ensuing decades, settlements emerged cautiously among the streams and hills, farmers carving a future from the dense woods. In 1791, as a small cluster of homesteads rallied around a chapel, the parish of São Domingos de Araxá—named for the founder of the Dominicans—came into being. Four decades later, it secured the status of vila (town), and by December 19, 1865, it bore the name Araxá as a recognized city.

Geographically, Araxá stands at 973 metres above sea level, its veins threaded with rivers and rivulets. To the north and northwest lie Perdizes, while Ibiá abuts the east, Tapira the south, and Sacramento the southwest. Serra da Bocaina pierces the skyline at 1,359 metres—the municipality’s loftiest peak—while the land dips to 910 metres by the Capivara River. An annual average temperature of 20.98 °C and nearly two metres of rain each year cultivate both lush forests and fertile pastures, a climate pleasant enough for relaxed afternoons under expansive skies.

When the Barreiro Hydrothermal and Hotel Complex opened in the 1940s, Araxá’s mineral-rich springs transformed its economy. Visitors arrived to soak in waters believed to soothe rheumatism and skin ailments; they lingered over therapeutic mud treatments by day and danced beneath chandeliers by night.

The Grande Hotel, inaugurated in 1944 by Governor Benedito Valadares alongside President Getúlio Vargas, crystallized this era of acclaim. With sweeping Art Deco facades and terraces that gaze over the spa gardens, it quickly became the backdrop for political gatherings, artistic soirées, and galas. Even today, its marble corridors and lofty ballrooms recall an era of elegance that drew Brazil’s elite to this inland spa town.

Silver Screen Allure: “Dona Beija” and Beyond
Araxá’s wider fame arrived on television screens in the 1980s with the telenovela “Dona Beija.” Centered on the life of a storied local heroine—rumored to have borne scrapings from the thermal baths on her skin—the series painted Araxá’s colonial houses, sunlit plazas, and winding streams into living rooms nationwide. Tourists, enticed by the show’s romanticized vistas, began seeking out the very streets and fountains where the drama unfolded.

Beneath its surface, Araxá holds one of the world’s richest niobium reserves—enough to meet global demand for nearly five centuries. Companhia Brasileira de Metalurgia e Mineração (CBMM) leads extraction and processing, feeding the aerospace industry with specialized steels and alloys for jet engines, rockets, and high-temperature equipment. Nearby, Vale Fertilizantes S.A. operates Brazil’s largest superphosphate plant, producing phosphate concentrates vital for fertilizers.

In 2005, Araxá’s GDP reached 1.439 billion reais, split almost evenly between industry and services. That year, 2,865 people worked in manufacturing, 1,498 in construction, 7,636 in commerce, 1,296 in hotels and restaurants, and 2,691 in public administration—numbers that reflect a well-balanced economy.

Stepping into downtown Araxá today, one finds bright façades lining cobbled streets. Afternoon sunlight slants through the branches of century-old trees in Praça Governador Valadares, where seniors chat over coffee at corner cafés and children chase pigeons near the fountain. Vendors sell freshly roasted coffee beans—another regional specialty—and pastelarias offer pastel de queijo that stay warm long after they leave the fryer.

Beyond the city limits, some 405 rural estates sprawl across 68,000 hectares, where roughly 1,500 people tend the land. Around 65,000 head of cattle produce half a million litres of milk daily (2004 figures), while pig and poultry farms supply local markets. Fields of soybeans, corn, and coffee diversify the harvest, and 22 small distilleries craft cachaça—a potent sugarcane spirit woven into Brazil’s cultural heritage.

Araxá’s story remains in motion: its spa complex innovates new therapies; CBMM develops advanced materials; farmers pilot sustainable practices. New festivals celebrate precolonial heritage and the arts, while galleries and craft markets spotlight local painters and sculptors. Yet beneath every modern advance lies the hum of those mineral springs and the memory of forest-shaded rivers where the Araxás first staked their claim.

In this city of healing waters, industrial marvels, and pastoral calm, time seems to run on two tracks—one that honors ancient springs and indigenous courage, the other that propels Brazil into new frontiers of science and commerce. Araxá’s quiet strength endures, both in the steam rising from its thermal baths and in the pulse of a community shaped by land, story, and the people who dared to stay.